


Knight Shift

by nightfalltwen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Knight Bus, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10691103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfalltwen/pseuds/nightfalltwen
Summary: His very first solo night on the job is more than he expected.  And what he never knew he actually wanted.





	Knight Shift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2017 hp_bunintheoven pregnancy prompt fest. Prompt claim was: by - _She is single, and in labour. Apparently that is the perfect time to meet the one true love_. Opening line of dialogue is taken directly from Stan Shunpike's greeting in PoA. This is more Zach's POV than Pansy's. I had fun writing this! :D Big thank you to **cryptaknight** for giving it a look over. ILU.

♦♦♦♦♦

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Zacharias Smith, and I will be your conductor this evening."

The clock chimed half past ten when the bus appeared, swaying with movement as it negotiated over the ruts and holes in the old country road.  Zach leaned against the wall that separated the driver from the passengers, muttering his welcome message under his breath.  His first night shift and already they'd transported two elderly wizards to a town he couldn't pronounce outside of Cardiff and picked up a fare in Norfolk that was delivered to Hogsmeade.  But he still wasn't comfortable with the greeting.  

Not that it really seemed to matter.  Both the Welsh wizards seemed to know Ernie, the Knight Bus' longstanding driver, and dropped the exact fare into Zach's' hands before he could even calculate how much they owed.  The Norfolk fare was half asleep as he trundled past Zach, thrusting far too many sickles into his hand and ignoring Zach's repeated clarification for whether or not the man wanted hot chocolate or a toothbrush.

The bus hit a hole in the road and jostled violently to the side.  Zach braced his foot against one of the metal support poles to keep from falling over.  Ahead of them a cloaked figure stood at the edge of the road, hood drawn up and rain bouncing off a repellant charm in the shape of an umbrella.  The wand held out in the downpour glowed white at the tip, the only other light on the dark, muddy road aside from the headlamps of the lumbering bus.

Zach pushed open the door.  "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded—"

"I know.  I was the one who summoned you."  The figure stepped inside and pushed back the hood.  

Zach blinked in surprised recognition.  Pansy Parkinson was the very last person he'd expected to climb on board his bus.  Especially out in the middle of sheep-fuck nowhere England with nothing but a cloak and what appeared to be a small satchel.  He was so surprised that he temporarily forgot that she'd interrupted his opening speech and forgot that he was supposed to be annoyed by it all.

"How much to just ride?"  She shifted around under her cloak, keeping it drawn.  "I don't have a destination.  I just want to... Can I ride all night and have you bring me to London by nine?"

He paused for a moment, counting. "That's eleven and a half hours!"

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I am aware of that.  How much?"

Zach was too embarrassed to admit that he didn't know off hand.  He held up his index finger and excused himself to speak briefly with Ernie all the while feeling her gaze boring a hole into the spot between his shoulder blades.  When he returned, she was fiddling around with coins under the front of her cloak.

"To stay on the whole night and eventually end in London it'll be four galleons and nine sickles.  But we can take you directly to London from here for just one galleon and twelve sickles and you wouldn't have to sit on this lurching old thing for more than an hour."

A pained expression flashed across her face and Pansy's nostrils flared.  She shook her head and held out a sack of coins.  "There's five galleons in there.  Keep the rest... incentive for... well you didn't see me here."

She held her satchel in front of her and moved slowly to the twisting stairs that went to the upper levels.  Zach stared at the little bag of coins before dumping them into the coin box, tossing his uniform hat onto one of the nearby beds and following her.  She was two steps up, awkwardly clutching her cloak and trying to manage the steps and her satchel at the same time.  She looked like one wrong step was going to send her hurtling backwards.

"Here, I can carry that for you," Zach said, reaching for the bag.

"No.  No, I'm fine!"

In her haste to block him from assisting, her hands let go of the bunched fabric.  As the cloak parted, Zach sucked in a breath.  With two older brothers, both married, he'd seen his share of sisters-in-law in all stages of pregnancy.  Judging from the size of her and the way she was carrying, Zach guessed she was about ready to pop.  Puffing out his cheeks, he took a step back and rubbed his neck.

"Erm... maybe you should stay on the first level.."

"I can climb _stairs_ ," she snapped and picked up the satchel.  Her free hand, no longer clutching at the robe, gripped the support rail to haul herself up to the second level.

Zach stared up as her feet disappeared from view and waited to hear the familiar squeak of one of the beds as she made herself comfortable.  He really wasn't the sort to pay much attention to the rumour mill that surrounded the pureblooded families.  Mostly because some of those rumours included himself and he wasn't keen on trying to defend his choices during the battle at the school.  But as he walked back to the front of the bus to tell Ernie they could head out, he tried to think of a moment when someone, _anyone_ , had said something about Pansy Parkinson being up the duff and holed away in Northern England.

But he couldn't think of anything.

♦♦♦♦♦

By quarter past two the fares had mostly dried up.  Ernie pulled the bus into a darkened Alley in Liverpool.  Leaning against the window, he tugged his hat down over his eyes and mumbled something about Zach waking him up if they got another fare.  Before Zach could respond, the older man was already snoring, the sound almost rattling the window behind his head.

Zach dug around in his rucksack until he found a plaid coloured thermos.  His gaze shifted back and forth between the stairs and the thermos in his hand before he made the decision to go up to the second level.  On his way, he grabbed one of the mugs used for hot chocolate.  It wasn't that he was curious about how she came to be in this condition.  Well, he was, but he knew better than to anger a pregnant woman.

He'd already been on the receiving end of a nasty hex for asking one of his sister-in-laws the wrong question at the wrong time.

"Parkinson?" His head popped up to peer across the floor before he climbed higher.  "I've got tea..."

Across the bus, he could see that she'd picked the bed just above the the driver.  It was the bed that shifted the least during the wild turns, so Zach could understand why she'd picked it.  Curled up on her side, with her back to him, had he not already known that she was pregnant, Zach wouldn't have been able to tell.  She was the sort of 'skinny pregnant' that his elder sister-in-law tended to complain about.

"Tea?" he repeated, drawing closer.  "It's not too strong and so long as you like it with milk..."

"Go away, Smith," she said with a pinched voice.

"I'm just checking to make sure you're comfortable," he said, trying not to sound irritated.  After all, it wasn't like he was trying to bother her.  He was providing her with good customer service.  That was his job.

Her response was a strangled sort of noise that seemed to catch in her throat and be held back by her lips.  Zach looked at her, at how she was curled up on the bed, and then off to the side as his thoughts started whirling about in his head.  On a hunch, he pulled out his wand and lit the space with a brighter glow than what was given off by the sconces.  It was then that he saw the wet patch on the quilt and when he came around the other side of the bed, he could see the beads of sweat that were gathered on her face.

The wand fell with a clatter, rolling along the floor until it hit the wall.

"Oh _shit_!"

♦♦♦♦♦

She wouldn't let him divert the bus to London.  She'd paid for an entire night and although he'd tried to give her back her coins so that he _could_ change the route, she refused to let him.

"I'll get off here and _walk_ if I have to!" she said, panting between pains.

"You can't have it here, Parkinson." He gestured to the bed and the dim surroundings.  "I don't know anything about delivering kids!"

Pansy's response was a groan, her hands gripping the quilt in tight fists.  Suddenly the bus lurched and Zach almost fell down on top of her.  Ernie called out from below that a fare in Exeter had come up.  Before Zach could say anything- that they would need to divert,  that their pregnant fare was about to burst and they needed to get to St Mungo's- the bus was off.

Zach raced down to the bottom level, trying not to let himself be flung into a window as he made his way to the driver's seat.

"Ernie," he gasped.  "You have to get Stan to come in.  I... there's an emergency."

"Stan's got the night off," Ernie said, steering none too gracefully around a few deer in the middle of the road.

"My relief then.  Chester?  Isn't he on call?"  He gripped the older man's arm.  "The girl upstairs.  She needs to see..."  Zach paused, realizing that Exeter was close to Exmouth.  And Exmouth was where Susan was.  Susan Bones who was in a happy relationship with Terry Boot who was, as Justin put it, Top Swot in the St Mungo's healer class.  "She has to go to Exmouth.  It's an emergency," he repeated.

Ernie pointed to the owl sitting on a perch by the door.  "Send Lucinda off with our pickup location.  Chester should be there to meet us."

Once the owl was off, Zach spent the next half an hour dashing up and down the stairs to the second level,  between checking on Pansy and then somehow managing to correctly welcome on a new fare that they picked up on the way to Exeter (they were going through Bristol anyhow).  He even miraculously calculated the correct fare for her trip to Ipswich before encouraging her to spend her trip at the very top of the bus.

A grumpy, disheveled Chester met them in Exeter and it wasn't long before Zach was helping Pansy off the bus in front of Susan's house.  He apologised profusely to both Ernie and Chester before watching the bus speed away into the night.  Maybe his job would be safe, he didn't know.  But he couldn't dwell long on the state of his employment because another contraction took over Pansy's body and she groaned, digging her fingers into his arm until it was over.

"Why did you bring me here?" she gasped.

"You need... my mate, Susan.  Her boyfriend is a healer—"

"Susan?" Pansy interrupted. "Susan _Bones_?"  She started to back away.  "No.  She can't.  She knows who I am!"

"So do I, Parkinson, and neither one of us give a shit about who you are.  But you can't have your baby on the Knight Bus and I can't deliver it here in the street.  So it's either we ask for help or we go to a muggle hospital and I don't even know where one is in Exmouth!"

"Zach!" A voice hissed from the now open doorway.  "It is three-thirty in the morning!  What on earth are you doing out here shouting in front of my house."

He turned around, half shielding Pansy from the light pooling out onto the front step.  "Erm... Hey, Suze... I sort of have a bit of a situation here."

And before he could explain, Pansy hunched over with an almost feral sounding cry.  Susan took one look at the pair of them, her mouth hanging open in surprise, and then gestured that they come inside.  Pansy made it as far as the front hall before her knees gave out and she slid to the floor.  With great relief, Zach let Susan take charge.  She told him to leave Pansy where she was and dragged him into the kitchen pointing at this and that until he had a pot on the stove with water heating and a number of clean, white towels at the ready.

She grabbed his arm before they went back to where Pansy was waiting, giving him a solid and very stern look.  "I'm only going to ask this once.  Because I have to.  Is it yours?"

Zach shook his head.  "No.   _No_.  She got on the bus up near the Scottish border at the beginning of my shift...  I don't know whose it is.  We didn't talk until I went to check on her and found her... well, like _that_."

That seemed to satisfy Susan and she told him to go back to check on Pansy.  When she returned to them, Terry was with her, a satchel in hand.  It was all business from there.  At least in the part of Susan and Terry.  Pansy hurled some rather colourful language at the three of them, swearing that she hated them all and she wished they would just leave her alone.

Luckily for Pansy, they ignored her.

Luckily for Susan's neighbours, there were solid imperturbable charms on the house.

♦♦♦♦♦

"Did you have a name picked out for her?" asked Zach, once they'd transported both Pansy and the new baby upstairs to Susan's guest bedroom.

He reached out and touched the round cheek of the sleeping infant, somehow wanting to fiercely protect the tiny thing.  It was an odd feeling to have, considering he hadn't seen Pansy in ages and had only known this little baby for a few hours.  But he supposed that sharing the ordeal had linked them all together.  Though this did seem to be much to Pansy's horror.  She didn't want to even look at Terry after it was all over.

Pansy shook her head, a fat tear rolling down her cheek and dripping onto the blanket that Susan had dug out from some her old baby things in the attic.  Given to her by an overzealous mother wanting grandchildren way too early, she'd said with a smile as she handed them over.

"I didn't want her," she confessed with a sob.  "Everyone thinks I'm a terrible person.. how could I be anything but a terrible mother?"

"Because people don't have to be what everyone thinks they are," he answered, sitting on the edge of the bed.  "Look at me. I fled Hogwarts because I was seventeen and not prepared to die for Potter's cause.  People might think I'm a coward.  But I'm not.  I'm realistic.  I would have died if I tried to fight."

"You didn't try to turn him over..."

"And who cares now?  Potter won.  What are you going to do?  Resurrect the Dark Lord just so you can try turning him over again?"  He shrugged his shoulder.  "We're not terrible.  We were children and we grew out of it."

Pansy snuffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.  "Why are you being nice to me?"

"Should I be nasty?"

"Everyone else has been.  My parents sent me north because of... this.  Astoria took it upon herself to announce my 'condition' to everyone in the upper circles.  No one wrote to me the entire time."  She let out a dry laugh.  "I guess friendship and house loyalty only goes so far."

Zach frowned, recalling that he'd seen something about the Greengrass girl getting her hooks into the Malfoy family.  He hadn't thought much on it, only that it had been a surprise because Malfoy and Pansy had been matched since they were children.  Every pureblood family knew this.  He opened his mouth briefly, but closed it.  Asking the _question_ , the one about the father, when it really wasn't his business probably wasn't the best idea.

"I should go and see if I still have a job."  He started to get up, but stopped when he felt her touch his hand.

"Could you stay?" she asked.  "Boot said he'd be back to check on me and I'm sure that Bones will never forgive me for the mess I made of her rug."  She paused, looking down at the baby.  "I'll write the Knight Bus a letter on your behalf, I promise. The Parkinson name isn't in complete ruin and... I'd rather not be here by myself."

Zach debated this and then stopped moving, nudging off his shoes and stretching out a leg on the bed.  "I can stay."

"For how long?"

"As long as you want me to, I suppose."

She ran her fingers over his knuckles and settled down against the pillow, her head tilting to rest against his upper arm.  "I'll let you know when I don't."

♦♦♦♦♦

Zach stepped off the Knight Bus, not waiting for it to pull all the way into the garage.  He gave the young man standing next to Ernie a bit of a salute and leaned over to tell maintenance to have a look at the stabilizing charms.  Mrs Twittingham nearly fell down the stairs again.  His last night shift was over and he couldn't be more pleased.  Sleeping away the days and pushing through the nights wasn't a life.  He missed far too much that way.

Raising his face to the early morning sunlight, Zach stretched and started down the road.

Pansy fell into step beside him, pushing a very large pram.  As he knew she would.  The dark-haired girl sitting in the buggy waved at him, pointing proudly to a new tooth.  There might have been a time, months ago where he still wondered about the father.  But as time went on, he found that it didn't matter.  It was Pansy's story to tell and he really all that interested anymore.

Not when he felt the way he did about the two of them.

"She's getting too big for that, you know," he teased.

She lightly smacked his stomach with the back of her hand.  "No, she's not.  Besides, she's a runner and I'd rather not chase her all over Diagon.  The last time she was loose, she upended an entire barrel of beetle eyes.  And ate a handful."

"Oh!  A _troublemaker_." He scooped the little girl up, all squeals and giggles, settling her on his shoulders, wincing when she clutched at his hair.  "Ouch.  Melody.  Be gentle."  He glanced over at Pansy, lips quirking in a smile.  "You sure you still need me?"

Pansy reached out and grasped his hand, threading her fingers with his.  "I'll let you know when I don't."

It was the same answer.  Every time he asked and he was glad it never changed.


End file.
